In collaboration with conductor and composer Klaus Arp, Jochen Hörisch unfolds Richard Wagner's theory-theater in its fundamental motifs and examines it through music-analytical explanations. Richard Wagner's artistic work polarizes like no other. His antisemitism cannot even be denied by his admirers. However, the ritual exchange between opponents is tiring and seems to have come to an end after the 200th birthday. In this context, another Richard Wagner is overlooked: the one driven by theory and a love for music, whose music dramas are always also wondrous dramas of insight - with revelations that are encapsulated in delightful operatic pleasure. Jochen Hörisch makes this Richard Wagner visible, being a brilliant theorist of literature and modern media himself. He offers us an engaging reading pleasure in the terrain between literature and philosophy.